Migratory birds breeding at high latitudes face challenges in relation to timing of breeding vs. annual weather, climate change, and predator abundance. Hunting pressure along migration routes and ...wintering quarters forms an additional challenge. We studied population structure and interaction with environmental factors in a small population of threatened Lesser White-fronted Geese Anser erythropus, living in sub-arctic zone in Lapland in 1989-1996. Thereafter the population disappeared. The population comprised 2-15 breeding pairs plus 0-12 non-breeders, which left in June to moult elsewhere. 30 broods were observed (0-8 annually) with an average number of 2.9 goslings. Of the 3 satellite tagged plus 7 ringed geese at least 3 were shot and altogether 4 killed during the first year. Only 2 were seen alive next year or later. Laying started on average 4 June (21 May-13 June) and hatching took place 2 July (21 June-10 July) with an intra-seasonal clutch size decline. Variation in nesting initiation was not explained by local phenology, but instead by the date of staging peak in the last pre-breeding staging area 600 km south. Reproduction was affected negatively by cold spells and positively by the sum of daily effective temperatures by 5 July. Vole populations were low and a real cycle missing. No effect of reindeer abundance or human presence on reproduction could be found.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
To evaluate postexercise heart rate recovery (HRR) in adults born preterm.
We studied the association between preterm birth and postexercise HRR in 545 adults (267 women) at 23.3 years of age (range ...19.9-26.3 years). One hundred three participants were born early preterm (<34 completed weeks), 178 late preterm (34-36), and 264 were full term (control group). HRR was calculated as change in heart rate (HR) 30 seconds and 60 seconds after cessation of submaximal step test and maximum HR slope during the first minute after.
Mean peak HR was 159.5 bpm in the early preterm (P = .16 with controls), 157.8 bpm in the late preterm (P = .56), and 157.0 bpm in the control group. Mean HRR 30 seconds after exercise was 3.2 bpm (95% CI 1.1-5.2) lower in the early preterm group and 2.1 bpm (0.3-3.8) lower in the late preterm group than the full term controls. Mean 60s HRR was 2.5 (−0.1 to 5.1) lower in the early preterm group and 2.8 bpm (0.6-4.9) lower in the late preterm group. Mean maximum slope after exercise was 0.10 beats/s (0.02-0.17) lower in the early preterm group and 0.06 beats/s (0.00-0.12) lower in the late preterm group.
Our results suggest reduced HRR after exercise in adults born preterm, including those born late preterm. This suggests altered reactivation of the parasympathetic nervous system, which may contribute to cardiovascular risk among adults born preterm.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Adults born preterm have higher blood pressure (BP) than those born at term. Most studies have focused on preterm birth, and few have assessed BP variability, an independent risk factor of ...cardiovascular disease. We studied the association of preterm birth with 24-hour ambulatory BP, measured by an oscillometric device, in 42 young adults born early preterm (<34 weeks), 72 born late preterm (34-36 weeks), and 103 controls (≥37 weeks). Sleep was confirmed with accelerometry in 72.4% of subjects. The 24-hour systolic BP of adults born early preterm was 5.5 mm Hg higher (95% confidence interval, 1.9-9.3), awake systolic BP was 6.4 mm Hg higher (95% confidence interval, 2.8-10.1), and sleeping systolic BP was 2.9 mm Hg higher (95% confidence interval 0.3-7.5) when adjusted for age, sex, and use of accelerometry. The differences remained similar when adjusted for height, body mass index, physical activity, smoking, parental education, maternal body mass index, smoking during pregnancy, and gestational diabetes mellitus and attenuated slightly when adjusted for maternal hypertensive pregnancy disorders. Adults born early preterm also had higher BP variability as indicated by higher individual standard deviations of systolic BP and diastolic BP. Although our results were consistent with a dose-response relationship between shorter gestation and higher BP, the difference between the late preterm and term groups was not statistically significant. Our results suggest that the higher BP in adults born early preterm is present during both waking and sleeping hours, may be more pronounced during waking hours, and is accompanied by higher individual BP variability.
The long-term effects of sleep on adolescent psychosocial well-being are mostly unknown, although insufficient sleep has been associated with emotional and behavioral difficulties in cross-sectional ...studies. With a five-year follow-up of Finnish adolescents (Time 1:
n
= 8834; Mean age = 13 years, 51.1% female, Time 2:
n
= 5315, Mean age = 15 years, 51.6% female, Time 3:
n
= 3712; Mean age = 17 years; 50.2% female), the purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the relations between self-reported sleep duration, sleep problems, and emotional and behavioral difficulties during adolescence. Emotional and behavioral difficulties were assessed using The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) measuring emotional symptoms, conduct problems, hyperactivity, peer problems and total difficulties. Sleep duration was calculated by counting the hours between self-reported bedtime and wake-up time. Sleep problems were assessed with a single question about the general sleep problems. According to the cross-lagged models for sleep and emotional and behavioral difficulties, the findings of this study indicate a developmental process during adolescence where, firstly, short sleep duration is a stronger predictor for current and prospective emotional and behavioral difficulties than vice versa. Secondly, increased emotional and behavioral difficulties expose adolescents to current and later sleep problems more strongly than reverse. Thus, the results show that short sleep duration predisposed to emotional and behavioral difficulties across adolescence, which then led to more prospective sleep problems. These findings suggest a developmental process where sleep and emotional and behavioral difficulties are intertwined in shaping adolescents’ health.
The health selection hypothesis suggests that poor health leads to low educational attainment during the life course. Adolescence is an important period as poor health might prevent students from ...making the best educational choices. We test if health in adolescence is associated with educational aspirations and whether these associations persist over and above sociodemographic background and academic achievement.
Using classroom surveys, a cohort of students (n = 5.614) from the Helsinki Metropolitan Region was followed from the 7th (12-13 years,) up to the 9th grade (15-16 years) when the choice between the academic and the vocational track is made in Finland. Health factors (Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), self-rated health, daily health complaints, and long-term illness and medicine prescribed) and sociodemographic background were self-reported by the students. Students' educational aspirations (applying for academic versus vocational track, or both) and their academic achievement were obtained from the Joint Application Registry held by the Finnish National Agency for Education. We conducted multilevel multinomial logistic regression analyses, taking into account that students are clustered within schools.
All studied health factors were associated with adolescents' educational aspirations. For the SDQ, daily health complaints, and self-rated health these associations persisted over and above sociodemographic background and academic achievement. Students with better health in adolescence were more likely to apply for the academic track, and those who were less healthy were more likely to apply for the vocational track. The health in the group of those students who had applied for both educational tracks was in between. Inconsistent results were observed for long-term illness. We also found robust associations between educational aspirations and worsening health from grade 7 to grade 9.
Our findings show that selection by health factors to different educational trajectories takes place at early teenage much before adolescents choose their educational track, thus supporting the health selection hypothesis in the creation of socioeconomic health inequalities. Our findings also show the importance of adolescence in this process. More studies are needed to reveal which measures would be effective in helping students with poor health to achieve their full educational potential.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
In a recent genome-wide association study, WD-repeat domain 12 (WDR12) was associated with early-onset myocardial infarction (MI). However, the function of WDR12 in the heart is unknown.
We ...characterized cardiac expression of WDR12, used adenovirus-mediated WDR12 gene delivery to examine effects of WDR12 on left ventricular (LV) remodeling, and analyzed relationship between MI associated WDR12 allele and cardiac function in human subjects. LV WDR12 protein levels were increased in patients with dilated cardiomyopathy and rats post-infarction. In normal adult rat hearts, WDR12 gene delivery into the anterior wall of the LV decreased interventricular septum diastolic and systolic thickness and increased the diastolic and systolic diameters of the LV. Moreover, LV ejection fraction (9.1%, P<0.05) and fractional shortening (12.2%, P<0.05) were declined. The adverse effects of WDR12 gene delivery on cardiac function were associated with decreased cellular proliferation, activation of p38 mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/heat shock protein (HSP) 27 pathway, and increased protein levels of Block of proliferation 1 (BOP1), essential for ribosome biogenesis. Post-infarction WDR12 gene delivery decreased E/A ratio (32%, P<0.05) suggesting worsening of diastolic function. In human subjects, MI associated WDR12 allele was associated significantly with diastolic dysfunction and left atrial size.
WDR12 triggers distinct deterioration of cardiac function in adult rat heart and the MI associated WDR12 variant is associated with diastolic dysfunction in human subjects.
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► We demonstrate distinct cardiac gene regulation by p38α and p38β. ► p38α induces BNP transcription through AP-1 and p38β through GATA-4. ► p38β is the main regulator of the expression of ...hypertrophy-related genes. ► p38α regulates the expression of fibrosis-related genes.
Persistent controversy underlies the functional roles of specific p38 MAPK isoforms in cardiac biology and regulation of hypertrophy-associated genes. Here we show that adenoviral gene transfer of p38β but not p38α increased B-type natriuretic peptide (BNP) mRNA levels
in vitro as well as atrial natriuretic peptide mRNA levels both
in vitro and
in vivo. Overexpression of p38α, in turn, augmented the expression fibrosis-related genes connective tissue growth factor, basic fibroblast growth factor and matrix metalloproteinase-9 both
in vitro and
in vivo. p38β-induced BNP transcription was diminished by mutation of GATA-4 binding site, whereas overexpression of MKK6b, an upstream regulator of p38α and p38β, activated BNP transcription through both GATA-4 and AP-1. Overexpression of MKK3, upstream regulator of p38α, induced BNP transcription independently from AP-1 and GATA-4. These data provide new evidence for diversity in downstream targets and functional roles of p38 pathway kinases in regulation of hypertrophy-associated cardiac genes.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK
The characteristic features of myofibroblasts in various lung disorders are poorly understood. We have evaluated the ultrastructure and invasive capacities of myofibroblasts cultured from small ...volumes of diagnostic bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid samples from patients with different types of lung diseases. Cells were cultured from samples of BAL fluid collected from 51 patients that had undergone bronchoscopy and BAL for diagnostic purposes. The cells were visualized by transmission electron microscopy and immunoelectron microscopy to achieve ultrastructural localization of alpha-smooth muscle actin (α-SMA) and fibronectin. The levels of α-SMA protein and mRNA and fibronectin mRNA were measured by western blot and quantitative real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. The invasive capacities of the cells were evaluated. The cultured cells were either fibroblasts or myofibroblasts. The structure of the fibronexus, and the amounts of intracellular actin, extracellular fibronectin and cell junctions of myofibroblasts varied in different diseases. In electron and immunoelectron microscopy, cells cultured from interstitial lung diseases (ILDs) expressed more actin filaments and α-SMA than normal lung. The invasive capacity of the cells obtained from patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis was higher than that from patients with other type of ILDs. Cells expressing more actin filaments had a higher invasion capacity. It is concluded that electron and immunoelectron microscopic studies of myofibroblasts can reveal differential features in various diseases. An analysis of myofibroblasts cultured from diagnostic BAL fluid samples may represent a new kind of tool for diagnostics and research into lung diseases.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
By modulating the electric field induced to a human body, it is possible to transfer data wirelessly using the body as a transmission medium. This method is referred to as human body communication ...(HBC), which has multiple advantages in comparison with the traditional radio frequency (RF) communication. First, it alleviates the traffic load from the radio channels, which are becoming more and more congested, as the number of connected wireless devices increases rapidly. Second, HBC can potentially provide higher security than traditional RF communication since the electric field stays in the vicinity of a human body, which makes eavesdropping more challenging. Third, the attenuation in the HBC frequency band is lower than in bands used by the other radio technologies for wireless body area networks. To improve energy efficiency in HBC, one approach is to utilize a wake-up receiver (WUR). The WUR is continuously listening for a pre-defined wake-up signal, which activates the other electric circuitry (e.g., sensing, processing, and communication). The use of WURs can significantly reduce the energy consumption and increase the lifetime of the sensing applications. In this work, we propose a superregenerative WUR solution which employs self-quenching and loose synchronization method and operating at sufficiently low (1.25 kbps) data rate in order to obtain high sensitivity while keeping the energy consumption low. This enables to achieve sensitivity of −97 dBm for 10
−3
bit error rate while consuming only 40 μW. The details of the design and the performance evaluation results of the proposed solution are in the paper. Also, the paper reports the results of the practical measurements characterizing the impact of the electrode location on the path loss in an HBC channel. The presented results show that the proposed system can potentially enable communication between two any points on the body with low transmit power.
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DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Abstract
Background
Low academic achievement has been associated with smoking but factors behind this association are poorly known. Such factors could include schoolwork disengagement and schoolwork ...difficulties. To assess the extent to which they contribute to the explanation of how health inequalities emerge, we study in a longitudinal design whether these have an independent effect on smoking or whether their effect is mediated through academic achievement.
Methods
Longitudinal data were collected in the Helsinki metropolitan area, Finland in 2011 and 2014. Participants were seventh-graders (12 − 13 years, N=9497). In the follow-up, 6534 students reported their smoking status in the ninth grade (15 − 16 years). Smoking, schoolwork behavioural engagement, i.e. participation in academic activities, and disengagement, schoolwork difficulties and cognitive competence were self-reported by adolescents. Academic achievement was obtained from the Finnish national application register on upper secondary education. A mediation analysis was executed with bootstrapped confidence intervals.
Results
Higher schoolwork behavioural engagement and cognitive competence in the seventh grade predicted that adolescents were more likely not to smoke in the ninth grade (all P<0.001) while higher schoolwork disengagement and schoolwork difficulties predicted adolescents’ smoking (all P<0.001). The effects were mediated through academic achievement.
Conclusions
Students’ behavioural disengagement with schoolwork and schoolwork difficulties are risks for smoking initiation. Their effect is mediated through poor school achievement. As smoking often continues in adulthood and poor school performance typically leads to lower education, schoolwork disengagement and difficulties in adolescence constitute potential pathways to inequalities in health.
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NUK, OILJ, UL, UM, UPUK, VSZLJ
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